


Fall Seven Times

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ancients, Episode: s01e01 Rising, M/M, Wraith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:14:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being rescued from Running, Ronon builds a new life in the Satedan settlement on Athos.  But when he gets involved with the refugees from Earth – and John Sheppard in particular – he could lose his people, his hold on sanity, and his home.  AU (Atlantis expedition evacuated underwater Atlantis)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall Seven Times

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Beyond the Wall](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/55159) by Hoktauri. 



> Many thanks to Mific for beta-reading and so much hand-holding; and to Hoktauri for the inspirational art!

* * *

Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight

* * *

The first time Ronon fucked John, they were just back from a mission and shouldn't have been alive, but they were. John whooped as the jumper rolled through the gate. As the gate shut down, the jumper looped madly up into the sky and then skimmed over the night-dark trees, shooting straight for the walls of the old city.

"Home," Rodney said, sounding reverent and peeved, face still flushed. He'd shot Wraith today; they all had. "Slow down, Major, are you crazy?"

John just tucked his chin down and grinned. Mud clung to his uniform and matted his dark hair, and he had bruises on his neck. The mission had taken half a day longer due to the darts that had attacked; John's whiskers were already growing in, making Ronon wonder – as he did more and more often – how their roughness would feel against his hands. Or his thighs.

Rodney didn't seem to notice he got no answer, but just kept on complaining right until John set the jumper down in the stone courtyard behind the Satedan barracks. Ronon walked him out, flagging a guard to escort Rodney across the lake to the Earth settlement and grinning at Rodney's sharp injunction to her about not getting the equipment wet. She looked pained, as if hauling the trade goods to the supply house would have been preferable. Rodney was like a lera cat: he looked soft and fluffy, but he was tenacious. Ronon liked having him on missions, and made a mental note to ask John whether Elizabeth could spare Rodney more often.

From inside the jumper, John waved Ronon off, telling him to go report to Kell while he _took care of stuff_ – cleaned their weapons and the jumper, set in new supplies of ammunition and food, whatever else his duties were as pilot. Ronon found Kell in the big meeting hall over the kitchens and baths, comparing old records to their digitized forms on one of the Earth tablets. Kell was pleased about their new trade partnership, pissed about the Wraith, and still not sure Ronon wouldn't murder him in his sleep. Ronon liked the way that made their working relationship predictable: Kell knew that when Ronon decided he wasn't worth keeping alive, no Satedan would step forward to protect him. And Ronon knew that being in charge would suck, so... Kell – despite being lying, cowardly scum – was useful.

John was finishing up washing the mud off the jumper with rags and a bucket when Ronon got back, and Ronon didn't help, just watched John work. John had stripped down to his cloth trousers and short-sleeved undershirt, and the light from the guardhouse torches made the rivulets of water down his arms shine golden. He was thin – most of the Earthlings were, because they had little to trade for food besides labor – but lean, hard-earned muscle showed in his arms and his thighs as he moved, stretching up and crouching low. Ronon thought John enjoyed showing off for him: like now, as he dragged the hem of his shirt up to scrub his face, exposing the pale skin of his stomach, and the dark line of hair that disappeared beneath the low waist of his trousers.

Job finally done, John went back to the wash-house, grinning at Ronon over his shoulder like an invitation. Following him inside, Ronon slid the latch across and used one of the Athosian firestarters to light the hanging lantern. John pulled his shirt off, dropping it in the trough, and used the bucket to pour water over his hair. Ronon put his hands on John's waist as he was bending over. He _wanted_ , and he felt John tense, saw his shoulders flex, heard the bucket set down.

"Christ," John said, head still bowed like a supplicant. "We're starting this now? Here?"

"Why not?" Ronon took a step forward and tugged John back, so his dick was up against John's ass. "We're alive."

John took a shuddering breath, or maybe laughed, and then stood. Ronon wrapped his arms around him, and John turned his head, reaching up to grab a handful of Ronon's dreads and pull him into a kiss. John was ruthless in battle, but his mouth was soft, eager, inviting, the scratch of their beards together an almost obscene shock of intimacy. Ronon hadn't done this since before Sateda fell, hadn't been free to touch in so long; he was hard and impatient with want, and he undid John's trousers, pushing them off his hips together with his underwear. Beneath his restless palms, John's skin was fever-hot, and Ronon _wanted_.

And John gave.

When he breached John, started taking him, John jerked, gasping and laughing, arm muscles taut, breath hitching as he protested, "It's not going to fit – oh, fuck, _fuck_."

Ronon just kept kissing John along his clenched shoulders, his neck, as he pressed in, pulled back, slid in deeper, gentled John with his hands and mouth, retreated and attacked until John had took him fully. "That's all."

John was still laughing, but the sound was different now, pleasure overlaid with desperation. "You're splitting me in two with that thing." But he shifted his bare feet on the floor and rebraced his hands, preparing himself. He'd taken down darts and killed two Wraith on the ground; Ronon took the bitching as his way of saying he could handle more – wanted more.

"I could try," Ronon agreed, and John's chuckle turned into groans as Ronon showed him what he meant. John gave as good as he got, pushing his hips back to meet every thrust like he was greedy for it. Ronon nudged John's sweat-slick leg, got him to raise his knee to the edge of the wash-trough, made John cry out and twist at the way the exposure of the new angle let Ronon in deeper. John pressed his head to the side, mouth to his arm to stifle the noise, and Ronon tried to get him to make noise anyway. John started to jerk away instinctively when he came but Ronon held him through the spasms until John was pliant with satiation beneath him.

Ronon started to pull out, but John clenched down, turning his head to say, "You don't have to. I'm good." His smile looked drugged, happy, _vital_ , and Ronon was home and whole and what he wanted he could take, so why not? John pushed him on with his body and teasing words, and Ronon tried to make him shut up, but that only made John shake with amusement and put all his weight on one arm as the other snaked around Ronon's neck to pull him into a kiss that he had no breath for, roaring with his release at the scratch of whiskers, afire with the terrible pleasure of being alive.

They both stripped naked and washed each other after that, then pulled on their uniforms over wet skin. John's bruises looked like shadows in the lantern-light, and his pale eyes glowed, and he kept staring at Ronon's dick in mock surprise at the size.

"If I'd known before," he said ruefully, rubbing a hand down the side of his trousers as he cracked his back.

"You'd have wanted this a lot sooner," Ronon told him, grinning, though he suspected he was the one who was slow on the uptake. He'd only noticed the way John watched him recently, and had just started to look back and wonder if it would be good, what John would feel like under him. "Admit it."

John shrugged, admitting or denying nothing. "If Sumner finds out – he'll take my job away. No more jumpers. I'd be planting beans the rest of my life."

Ronon had heard that the people from Earth had stupid sex taboos. "Kell wouldn't let him."

John sighed, balancing carefully to tug on socks and then boots. "Someday Kell and Sumner are going to have a disastrous break in their balance of power. But not over this, okay?"

"Whatever." Ronon figured there was nothing more to talk about. John knew as well as he did that Elizabeth had more power over the Earthlings than Sumner did, just as Kell was tolerated at the discretion of the Athosian leader, Teyla Emmagan. Still, John's primary vows were to his Task Master, it seemed: Earthlings were complicated. "I'll take you across the lake."

John nodded. "Walk slow. I feel like I was run over by a tank."

Ronon clapped his hand to the back of John's wet shirt, shaking him a little before letting him go.

John's payment for the day was eight sacks, both whole grains and flour, but Rodney'd already taken half, probably for the day's evening meal. The Earthlings had four jumpers, and Ronon thought sending out four trading teams a day was going to bring the Wraith down on them sooner rather than later, but until the crops were in the alternative was starvation. Kell'd been furious with Teyla for allowing the refugees to stay, adding another two hundred mouths to feed. Not that Kell was stupid enough to complain to her directly, seeing as the reason stores were scant was that seven years before she'd taken in the surviving Satedans. Like the Earthlings, they'd also arrived with nothing but what they carried in their hands, their home world gone forever. Teyla's people had shared their knowledge and seeds, fishing boats and nets, given shelter and kindness.

Ronon thought about the Athosians and their generosity as they loaded the boat and rowed over, sitting side by side in silence. On the pier Ronon helped John set the sacks on his shoulders to carry. John gave him a searching look, and then flashed a smile.

"See you tomorrow."

Ronon raised his eyebrows, wondering if John was talking about the mission or something else. "Don't be late again."

"Yeah, yeah." John nodded and then turned carefully, minding his step as he made his way up the log stairs to the trail that lead towards the settlement, the distant lights flickering through tree branches and ground mist.

Ronon didn't stay to watch him disappear from view. He was tired, now, from the fight and the fear and the fucking, and his arms ached as he pulled the oars through the water. The night was still, the only sounds those of fish and amphibians, the occasional night-hunting bird. The wind had died down, and the stars overhead were mirror-mapped across the dark lake water, like Ronon was the only person alive at the center of the universe, at the end of everything.

He got that itch at the back of his neck that came from remembering his years running. He'd tried to carry who he was with him – his name, his clan, his position, his home world; honor, dignity, respect – but all that had abandoned him. He'd been left with raw needs; he'd become an animal, just like the Wraith had promised him. He didn't remember the years or the days, just running and hiding, killing when he could, wanting to kill more, eating and running and sleeping solely so he could kill. And he'd been the only person who'd mattered, his universe shrunk and contained under his dirty skin, because horror was at his back and in his back and he brought death with him. His whole purpose was to kill Wraith but he was a beacon to them, and he could protect no one, and he should have had the courage to kill himself.

He hadn't allowed himself to think, for years.

When Kell's people found him, two broad women in battle armor and armed with Wraith stunners, he nearly killed them; forced them to fight even though he knew from their uniforms that they were Satedan; he made them disarm him and stun him and wrestle him to the ground. He'd been enraged that they weren't letting him get to the gate, get away. He'd been spitting with fury, spurred to find words because they'd bound him hand and foot and taken away his knives.

_Wraith bringer,_ he'd snarled at them, the first words he'd spoken in ages, his tongue clumsy. _Runner. Let me go._

The last time they stunned him his consciousness finally slipped away, and Ronon thought despairingly that they hadn't understood the Wraith were coming. The Wraith had finally used him as the tool of their revenge: they'd feed on the memories of these two women, find the Satedans where they were hiding, and finish their genocide.

Kill them all.

He woke to brutal wrenching pain in his back. He was slung over the larger woman's shoulder, and she was marching for the gate with grim determination. Ronon's feet were dragging on the ground behind them, and he was wet. Probably pissed himself when he was stunned, he thought, but then he smelled the blood.

They brought him through a fast interchange of safe gates until they reached Athos. He drifted in drugged sleep for days, and when his back was healed enough not to tear open and the infection was gone, Tyre came for him.

Ronon had been dressed in clean cloth clothes by the Athosian healers, and was sitting outside on a chair in the sun. He didn't understand anything in the absence of the need to run – and it had taken days for him to grasp that one miraculous fact: that his tracker was gone, that his movements wouldn't betray others. He'd been given a bowl of peas to shell, partly to earn his keep and partly to exercise his right arm, which was weakened and clumsy due to damage from when the tracker had been hacked out. The healers said he'd recover in time, but he didn't believe them.

He didn't believe that he was alive, that his future could contain chairs, quiet, pea pods firm and hairy gripped in his fingers. It felt like a hallucination, so Tyre walking out from between two tents and smiling when he saw Ronon – that was to be expected, Ronon's hallucinating mind reaching for a symbol of better times and friendship.

Tyre was out of uniform, in a worn brocade coat and patched trousers. His hairline had receded, but his face was still unlined, round and young.

"Ronon," Tyre said, and smiled, and then saw something in Ronon's expression that made him frown and step forward. "You're safe here." He took a triangle of cloth from his pocket and handed it over, gesturing towards Ronon's face even as he took the bowl of peas and set it inside the net shelves hanging by the tent's entrance. "Finally."

Ronon wiped his face, surprised to find tears. "Where are we?"

"Home," Tyre said firmly. "What's left of Sateda's people. Home world of the Athosians – old trade partners of Kell's clan, hundreds of years ago."

Ronon grunted and glanced around at the tents. _These_ people had nothing.

"Walk with me," Tyre said, and then squinted like he was apologizing. "If you – let me know if you're tired."

Ronon raised his eyebrows as he pushed to his feet. His back hurt, and he could feel the weakness in his arm, but he could walk. He needed to get back in training. The Wraith – he needed to kill them all.

"This way." Tyre pointed with his chin and started walking. Ronon kept pace at his side, memorizing the way through the tents: where the cooksites and latrines were, the unfamiliar faces.

Tyre told him what had happened, and every word fed anger that burned off the dreamlike haze, leaving Ronon as frustrated as a caged animal.

Kell and the infantry divisions he commanded – most of Sateda's armed forces – had fled in the final battle, leaving the people unprotected against the Wraith. Ronon had known that; after Melena's death, he'd vowed to kill Kell if the man was still living. But he'd never heard rumors that they'd survived, or that they'd made a settlement.

"Here," Tyre said, voice hushed with awe. "The Wraith captured my squad before the fall of Sateda. They... tortured us. Turned us, in our heads, fed on us until black became white and they looked like gods. I can't explain it. Kell's men saved all of us but Marika and Hemi. Ara, Rakai, and myself, they gave us time and healing. Forgiveness. Brought us here." He took Ronon's elbow and tugged him into a clearing that overlooked a rocky beach, a pier, the wide dark reach of a lake, and on the far shore, the tall clean lines of stone and metal buildings gathered into a city.

"What is this place?" Ronon asked, looking from the city to the tents behind him.

Tyre shook his head. "Before the great culling here, there were two factions. One built that – " he gestured towards the graceful curves and spires that rose up from the water's edge. "They created weapons. Thought they were strong enough to fight the Wraith. The others followed the Way of the Ancestors. Living a simple nomadic life in small tribes, renouncing technology for spiritual development. Long and short is, the city dwellers were culled, while the nomads survived in caves and tents and left the city to rot. Legend said entering it would bring down the Wraith." He looked up at Ronon with a sly smile. "It didn't."

"Kell." Ronon looked to the side and spat in the dirt.

Tyre put his hand on Ronon's arm, and didn't let him buck the touch off. "He's a coward and a traitor, but he didn't bring the Wraith down on these people, on his own people." Tyre didn't say that that was what Ronon would have done, but the rebuke was clear between them. "And he's been finding and saving everyone he can, bringing that city back to life, working with the Athosians. He saved us." Tyre shifted his grip to Ronon's elbow, nudging him back into the settlement. "I have to show you – "

He led Ronon to a tent with bunches of root vegetables drying on a rack in front, where a dark-skinned woman in Athosian clothes stood at a table, sharpening knives with a whetstone.

"My wife," Tyre said, and she looked up, expression wary. "Chila. Ronon Dex, from Sateda. And here..." He bent over a box set beside the door, and when he turned around, there was a plump baby in his arms and a smile ghosting his mouth. "My daughter."

Ronon felt the world spin around him, knocked loose by dark wide eyes and tiny fingers holding onto Tyre's coat, unable to tell sky from ground or know how to keep himself upright. He knew when he fell, because pain blossomed across his back as if he'd been split open. He heard voices, but he couldn't tell if they were in his head or not. Someone put a cup to his mouth, and he drank, not caring if it was poison.

It was tea, bitter, medicinal, and hot, and Ronon found himself sitting on the ground, Tyre's chest to his back and Melena leaning forward to put a fur-work blanket over his lap.

Not Melena.

Ronon leaned his head back to rest on Tyre's shoulder, exhausted and dizzy.

"How long have I been gone?" Ronon asked, fighting to get each word cleanly off his tongue. "How many years since Sateda fell?"

Tyre shrugged, hands stroking down Ronon's arms, like he could brush away the past. "Kell came here five years ago, local time."

Ronon closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the sky showing through the branches overhead was tinged with pink and gold. He could smell fire close by and stew cooking, and heard a woman singing, a child laughing, felt Tyre at his back, holding on. The sun was going down and five years of his life had been eaten by nightmares, and he was so tired the weight of his anger was more than he could bear. The air on his face was cool and he swallowed it down, trying to ease the pain in his throat.

"Hey," Tyre said, softly. "I know. Okay? I know how it is. I... Kell saved me, but the Wraith broke me in ways that nothing can make whole. I don't go through the Ancestor's gate. I can't fight. If you want... you can stay here with us. You don't have to go to Kell in the city. There are other paths."

"I can fight." Ronon clenched his fists hard, then spread his fingers. "It's all I have."

"Sure," Tyre said, neutral, placating. "Okay."

He'd rowed Ronon across the lake himself, that first time, the dark buildings rising like a threat as they drew closer; as he was drawing closer now. Every time he approached, he remembered how lost he'd been, how undone – broken, maybe – and how different things had been once he'd walked through the city gates that first time. Inside the walls there were gardens and brilliantly colored fabrics, laughter and study, and Kell gave him back his life. Armed him, dressed him, called him Specialist once more and gave him assignments and gate missions.

The first year here Ronon hadn't thought much about anything except killing Wraith. He needed to keep busy, and to not think about killing Kell: he had his duty to avenge the dead, but he owed Kell his life. Some surviving elders from Satedan tribes lived in the city; he thought about asking them what to do about Kell, but then decided that their silence meant they were comfortable with their complicity. So he ran raids and blew a lot of shit up, even taking down a couple of darts with an energy weapon he found in the ruins of a former ally state. He earned a reputation for being one of Kell's best fighters.

Tyre'd been telling him all along that Kell needed him, but that whole first year Ronon had thought he was crazy.

Ronon got comfortable, though, even though he hadn't planned on settling in. He talked to the other soldiers, and spent enough time in the Athosian settlement to become familiar with their trading parties and the comings and goings of their many clans. 

The people of Athos had been textile makers, primarily. The city had long-derelict factories for the weaving of carpets and fabrics, with great vats for dyes and stacks of rusting metal spools. Since Kell had dissipated the ghost story about the city being Wraith-haunted, the Athosians started returning. Salvage teams moved from building to building, removing all usable objects to the great western hall for repair and distribution. There was a bustle of industry and optimism that Ronon loved, and found terrifying.

The Satedans lived in a cluster of three-story buildings that fanned out opposite the main hall, separated by yards vivid with vegetables and herbs, white bean-flowers climbing the walls and deftly woven netting draped over all to keep out the insects. To Ronon's eye, the city looked like one of the magical palaces from a children's tale. Every room had a wealth of patched rugs on the floors, and every bed was heavy with blankets, quilts, and furs. The sheer fabric panels covering windows looked like colored glass, their lattices of metallic fibers sparkling in the sunlight.

Several days' travel away from the Ancestral gate, Ronon learned, there were great plains stretching out along the sides of the lazy meandering river that fed the city lake. The Athosians who lived there moved camp with their flocks all summer long, grazing them on endless hills of sweetgrass, only returning when the first frosts dragged their icy fingers across the land. In the spring, before they left the settlements again, the animals were sheared.

Before Kell, most of the raw wool had had to be traded; the Athosian people could never have spun or woven all of it by hand. But now, boat after boat brought the wool to the city, to the mills. More and more of the missions Ronon went on were to trade woolens, at Teyla's request.

Ronon liked Teyla; unlike most of her people, she was as proficient with energy and projectile weapons as with traditional knives and bantos. She'd been to many worlds, and was skilled as a Wraith tracker. Tyre found comfort and strength in the meditation rituals of her people, and Ronon had tried them, mostly to get Tyre to shut up. It hadn't worked. But Teyla said the same mental focus could be attained through sparring, and beat Ronon to his knees time and again. He respected that, even though it hurt like hell.

He dealt with the pain. Pain pushed the memories back – and let him sleep at night, even when the dance of the drapes on the wind looked like the dead returning.

Arriving at the city pier, he moored the boat, shook off thoughts of the past as he shook water from his boots, and saluted the night guard. As he walked through the empty streets to his barracks he felt loose and relaxed, the feeling lingering as he climbed the stairs to his room. Fighting the Wraith and then fucking John had taken the edge off Ronon's anger just like sparring, left him feeling like he'd just eaten his fill at a feast. Sated and drowsy, he thought, stripping his clothes off and hanging them on the rack, when so long he'd been hungry.

On the next mission, and the three after that, John acted like nothing had happened between them. He flew the jumper to whatever planet they were trading on, landed it where it wouldn't be discovered accidentally, and was fine with having to drag – or push – the carts to and from markets and trading councils. He kept his mouth shut and stayed alert, and Sumner's soldiers followed his lead. Ronon knew John outranked them, but he never demanded the respect he was due. Their first few missions had been rough, because Sumner's men were testing him, but John had never once frozen or hesitated when they ran into Wraith. Once they knew John was a good fighter, someone they wanted watching their backs and who'd never leave them in Wraith hands, they came around pretty fast.

Ronon asked John whether his way of handling his subordinates was typical for his world, as they worked side by side to unload another shipment of Genii beans and Tiab grain onto carts.

"I'm no good at telling people what to do," John said, and then gave Ronon a quirk of his mouth, almost a smile. "Bad with words. We have that in common."

It took Ronon a moment to realize John was obliquely referring to that night in the wash-house, and he thought belatedly that maybe he'd been waiting for John to make the next move. And John'd been doing the same thing.

"Come back to my room after this," Ronon said, and there was John's smile, half-hidden as he ducked his head.

"Sure, why not?" John raised an eyebrow at Ronon as he hefted a sack from the jumper floor. If Ronon didn't know that the grain was fucking heavy and required that much muscle just to lift, he'd have suspected John was trying to show off his arms. The back of John's neck shone with sweat, darkening the fabric of his shirt, which had pulled loose from his belt and rode up on one side. "Move," John suggested, jerking his chin at Ronon, who'd been blocking the hatch while he stared. "Or I'll drop this on your feet."

Ronon stepped to the side, and then grabbed one sack under each arm, feeling the strain in his legs as he straightened and the pull in his shoulders. But it was worth it for how John looked at him. He figured John knew he was showing off.

John followed Ronon home, looking around curiously. Ronon wondered if he'd ever been in the Satedan living quarters before, then guessed probably not. Why would he?

He led the way up the stairs, and John set the bar across the door as soon as he was inside.

"Do those windows close?" John asked, and then shrugged when Ronon shook his head. "Okay."

Ronon pulled off his shirt, started in on his pants, and John followed suit, keeping a careful distance from the windows. Ronon was already hard by the time he was naked, and when John pulled him in and kissed him he didn't know what he wanted, to get off fast or to fuck John apart for long slow hours, until he was wild and desperate.

"I want to suck you," John said, sliding his cheek against Ronon's. "Been thinking about it."

"Go for it," Ronon said, deciding right then that that was definitely what he wanted.

John laughed and then hooked a leg around Ronon's calf and shoved him backwards onto the bed. Ronon caught John's arm as he fell, bringing him down with him, and John settled over him as he stretched out, heat sparking where their skin met. John pressed kisses down Ronon's neck and along his collarbone, the hand that wasn't bearing his weight stroking Ronon's chest, thumb sliding across his nipple. Ronon grabbed John's hair in a reflex, stomach tightening hard.

When John glanced up, uncertainty in his eyes, Ronon didn't know what to say. "Ticklish," he said, even though that wasn't really true. He was going to try and explain how it tickled, in a way that made him feel there was a current building under his skin, like he was tinder about to catch fire.

John just patted him with an quick apologetic smile and slid even further down, to lap his tongue carefully over the head of Ronon's dick.

" _This_ tickle?" he asked. The words were amused, almost teasing, and Ronon could feel the cool air of John's breath where his tongue had been a second before.

"No," Ronon got out, and half curled up from the mattress when John hummed and took Ronon's dick into his mouth.

It had been so _long_ , and memories blurred the present. John's dark head, bowed, mouth stretched wide, eyes closed in concentration, became Melena's curls falling messy across Ronon's thighs, and he'd reached down to brush the hair off her face so he could watch. They'd only done this twice. Melena swore she'd get better, get used to it, become as good with her mouth as he was with his, but then she was gone.

And now Ronon was here, in an alien bed, John swallowing Ronon's dick like he was feeding a hunger of his own, pressing down on Ronon's hips to force him still, even though Ronon wanted to let everything loose, forget and buck up into John's mouth, just take him.

He touched John wherever he could reach: ran a finger along the curve of his ears, brushed over an eyebrow, pressed his thumb into the hollow of John's cheek and felt his own hard length trapped there. He traced the stretch of lips where he and John joined. John was breathing hard, and Ronon pressed his knee up until he felt John's dick. He shifted until his leg was between John's, and John started to move against him, slow and controlled.

John reached up and caught Ronon's hand, weaving their fingers together like he needed an anchor. Ronon rolled his hips, trying to ask if that was okay, and John closed his eyes and moved his other hand to the mattress. 

Ronon tried to be slow and gentle, to treat John with the care he'd've taken with Melena, but he got lost in how good it felt. John made it clear he wanted whatever Ronon had to give, and Ronon settled his hand on the back of John's neck and fucked him hard, fucked him until he felt the bright coiling deep inside that meant he was at the tipping point.

"Gonna," he got out, barely able to think.

John squeezed his fingers, and ducked his head as low as he could.

When Ronon came, he felt the surge of power rush from his center to each finger and toe, whiting out his vision, ripping a cry from his throat with each aftershock, and in the wake of power came a feeling of being washed clean: light shining through him like peace. He pulled John up to kiss him, uncoordinated and rough, but John came willingly. John tasted like Ronon, and Ronon liked that. Ronon liked just about everything, right now, and wrapped his hand around John's dick and stroked him until he fell apart.

After that, Ronon started fucking John after nearly every mission – fucking, sucking, rubbing off against each other, using their hands. It didn't take long for Ronon to figure out that John knew more ways men could fuck than he did. He thought about being pissed off that John was teaching him – _training_ him – but it felt good to have someone to hold, to make someone come, to get the same in return. Ronon even stopped demanding that Kell give him more offensive missions. He was content.

So when Elizabeth came to Kell and asked for a team to visit Dagan, Ronon didn't mind taking the assignment, even though the Earthlings never had any good leads against the Wraith. Their main interest was in religions relics of the Ancestors, and mostly this meant either sitting around listening to folktales or digging up ruins. The Athosians were sending Teyla, and Ronon bet she'd enjoy the research and the chit-chat, and would probably walk away with a trade agreement.

Ronon mostly wanted to kick back and have some fun. And he did.

The Dagan mission ended up being one of the digging ones. Ronon got to watch John sweat, dirty under the burning sun, taking measured swigs from his canteen and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. At nights he slept in the men's tent and watched John kick the blankets aside so as he slept the pale skin of his stomach was exposed. He learned how to play Earth card games, and he taught everyone except the Daganians how to play grab-flag. All the Earthlings sucked at the game, but it was satisfying to beat John to the ground.

Even Teyla, for all the dignified cultural discussions she had with the Daganians, looked equally pleased with her ability to thrash Ronon every time.

When Rodney and the Daganian researcher, Allina, had the breakthrough that led them to find the final stone to reveal the treasure of the Quindosium, John bumped fists with Ronon and exchanged grins. Digging had gotten boring; things were about to become exciting. They'd found the underground chamber a couple of weeks ago, but now they could activate the mechanism that protected the Brotherhood's secret. The Daganians provided a sturdy wooden ladder, and pretty soon the chamber was elbow-to-elbow full of people jostling to get a view.

Allina kept her head constantly bent towards Rodney's as they studied the stones, reading the symbols and debating their meanings. It was hilarious for the first few minutes, with John nudging him and giving Rodney and Allina a significant look, still amused over how oblivious Rodney was to her attention. But as minutes stretched into tens of minutes, the tedium got to everyone.

John grew tense and restless, frowning every time someone told Rodney to hurry up, and Teyla spoke in low murmurs to Allina and Sanir in turn, trying to convince them that caution was their friend, that speed was not necessary.

Sanir sneered at the warnings; Ronon knew how she felt. After all the hard, sweaty labor, who wanted to pay attention to more legends and riddles? As soon as Rodney had the stones placed in order, Sanir marched forward, elbowed him out of the way, and planted her hands firmly on the touch panels.

Her expression of triumph turned to horror as concealed blades sliced her palms open, and a moment later she was dead on the floor, eyes still shocked wide.

Ronon found himself staring into the barrels of off-world weapons, held by every one of the Daganians who at the start of the day had been allies.

"You knew," Allina snarled, backing away from Rodney to take shelter behind the line of her people. She gestured to a man whose size rivaled Ronon's, and he demanded their weapons be set down and kicked over. Ronon hated it, but did it anyway.

"I suspected." Rodney glared at her. "And I warned you. I did. Didn't I tell you, one to nine was too simple? Too obvious?"

Ronon figured the sneering way Rodney was implying that she was stupid was why Allina ordered him to test the next pattern of stones on John, and then, if he failed, on Teyla and then Ronon.

Ronon was surprised when John solved the puzzle before Rodney could, rearranging the stones with sharp angry clicks, and he looked sideways to catch Teyla's eye. She raised an eyebrow at him; she was always telling Kell that for all he used the Earthlings, he didn't understand their ways at all.

Ronon'd thought he understood John well enough, but suddenly he was off-balance. He didn't like it one bit.

The sacred relic of the Brotherhood turned out to be a big crystal that pushed out from the wall, propelled by hidden machinery, and Rodney nearly got his head blown off when he started forward to pull it free.

"The Potentia is for the Ancestors," Allina said. She took the crystal herself, wrapping it like a newborn and cradling it in a shoulder-sling. "Thank you for helping us. But you must understand we will not be breaking the Brotherhood's trust for you."

"We need that," Rodney said. "The city of the Ancients will be lost forever without it, along with everything they knew about how to fight the Wraith." He looked back, desperately, towards Teyla, who shook her head. "Come with us," he said, turning back towards Allina. "You cannot _imagine_ their city. You could fit a hundred of your castles inside, and millions of treasures."

"The Quindosim only guards one treasure," Allina said. "We will give it to the Ancestors when they return."

She gestured to her people, and they guarded her as she climbed the ladder, and then each other as one by one they made their way to the surface. When they were all above ground, the ladder was pulled up, and there was nothing to do but wait in the guttering torchlight.

"You knew what we would find," Teyla said finally. "That is what your people have been looking for."

"The city will flood without it," Rodney said, anger clipping each of his words sharp.

"McKay," John said, from the wall he was examining for footholds. His voice was low, a warning, and he grimaced and glanced at Teyla in apology, saying, "The city gate's our only way home."

"And for that you would betray your friends and allies." Teyla crossed her arms, condemnation clear in her expression.

John wiped his hands on his trousers, then knelt to dust them with dirt from the floor. "I'm the reason the city shields failed," he said, and Rodney raised both his hands as if making a token protest. "I turned the power on." John shrugged, loosening his shoulders. "And now I just lost our only chance at a ZPM. I can't win for losing." He raised his chin and met Ronon's eyes at last. Ronon felt a small bit of pleasure, inside the anger, that John looked sick at his role in the deception. "Spot me?"

John was a good climber; Ronon hadn't known that but he could have guessed. He knew the strength in John's arms and legs. John fell twice scaling the wall: not badly, though he'd have bruises, just as Ronon was bruised from the scrape of one of John's boots along the side of his face as he caught him. There was a bad moment at the end, as John hung from the stone mouth of the entranceway to catch his breath, when Ronon thought maybe he didn't have a strong enough hold to pull himself out. But John adjusted his grip, swung his legs for momentum, and in short hard bursts of energy worked his upper body out. Ronon saw him roll to the side and out of view.

He braced himself for the sound of a weapon discharge, but there was nothing. After a minute, John's dirty face appeared, grinning, and then John started lowering down the ladder.

"They don't bear us ill will," Teyla said, when she'd climbed to the surface. Their weapons were in a pile to the side, as well as Rodney's tools and tablet. She collected her knives, setting them in their sheathes, and reholstered her projectile gun. "They simply do not wish to be stolen from."

John didn't say anything, not then, not on the long march back to the Ancestral gate. Ronon missed the speed of the jumper, but they'd left it hidden in a clearing – so as not to frighten the Daganians, Teyla had insisted, but now Ronon was selfishly glad that they hadn't given them an opportunity to take the Ancestral ship to ferry their relic to its new hiding place. Ronon had the heightened sense of awareness that came during battle, the prickling at the back of his neck that felt like Wraith eyes watching him. But they saw no one along the trail through the woods, even though the setting sun filled the air with a clear golden glow, showing every leaf and stone clearly.

Ronon's mother had sung a song on nights like this, as they gathered the evening vegetables, about birds flying to their nests and children going home from playing on the hills. When he'd been running from the Wraith the words to the song had been the rhythm of his feet: _ta, ta, ta, the red-bird chicks call_ as he kept moving even when his stomach was empty and he hadn't slept for days, when the sour stench of his own sweat made him feel ill. _Bye, bye, bye, the sun is going down._

He'd asked Kell if anyone had had news from his village, but he knew inside his heart that his mother was dead, and his father, his sisters and their children, his younger brother who'd wanted to be a Specialist as well. Maybe Ronon was the only person left alive who still knew those old folksongs, stupid as they were, games played with fingers and counting rhymes. Tyre might like for him to share them with his child, except even the songs were Wraith-touched in Ronon's mind, like everything beautiful.

He felt a swell of something like grief as they made their way through the woods, wishing for a gate he could step through that would bring back everything lost, the beauty of golden evenings, eating peas straight from the vines, the protection of his mother's large soft arms. Bring back the children who became soldiers, and then the dead, the traitors, and the runner.

Once through the gate, Ronon waved the others off to return to the Athosian settlement by themselves. He didn't need to report to Elizabeth or Sumner, and Teyla didn't need him to give witness. Word would get back to Kell somehow; Ronon didn't really care. He figured he was free to go, so he took his freedom and went back to his room to eat supper alone, bathe and sleep alone.

He heard a few days later, through unofficial channels, that John'd been taken off piloting, so it wasn't a surprise that for the next joint missions the Earthlings sent new pilots, first a reedy pale man and then a woman with cropped black hair. Ronon got used to them. There wasn't much else he could do.

He thought, sometimes, about the city of the Ancestors, sleeping under the ocean on a far planet. He didn't know much about the Ancestors. His people hadn't had the legends and lore that the Athosians had. From the stories Ronon heard from Teyla and Tyre's wife, the Ancestors looked like humans, but were taller and perfect in features, dressed in white gowns. They were ascetics, whose minds were wholly turned toward the attainment of perfect peace. Teyla said that some of them had the ability to heal with a touch, and to control the forces of nature. Even Rodney, who was skeptical of all superstitions, accepted the belief that the Ancestors had built the gates, but could not explain how they'd done it.

Teyla insisted that perfect peace lay within the grasp of all people, if they were able to set aside earthly desires and passions. Ronon thought she might be right about herself – she was already kind of otherworldly in her self-discipline and meditation. But he could never set aside his restlessness, his anger, his revenge. He was a vessel for that fire, and when it no longer burned, he'd vanish with the smoke and be gone. And he was fine with that.

He asked Kell to give him more raids and less trade. It was good to kill Wraith again, to hurt them the way they hurt millions.

He stopped thinking about the Earthlings, what they wanted and what they were willing to do to get it, about their homeworld which had never known the Wraith, about how easily they used Ancestral technology but had none of the Ancestors' powers or wisdom. He didn't understand them, he decided, and he didn't have to.

Until one day he returned home from a trade for fifty sacks of grain flour to find Rodney waiting for him at his door.

Before he knew what he was doing, Ronon looked past him, searching for another, but Rodney was alone.

"I need to talk to you," Rodney said, crossing his arms. Trying to look brave, Ronon guessed, when really he looked like he hadn't been sleeping for a few weeks, his hair tufting up and dark circles under his eyes.

"Sure," Ronon said, and opened the door.

Rodney paced nervously until Ronon barred the door, and then sat down heavily on the bed. His hand brushed the furs and he jumped, as if he thought Ronon kept live animals in his room.

"I know you're probably still mad," Rodney said quickly. "And I get it. Believe me, Elizabeth and the Colonel went at it like cats and dogs, diplomacy this and top secret that – honestly, I just tried to stay out of it altogether." He looked up at Ronon, face pinched into resolute lines. "They don't know I'm here."

Ronon grabbed the stool and dragged it over so he could sit down. Rodney talked a lot. "And?"

"And," Rodney repeated, rolling his eyes. He pulled off his pack and dug out his tablet, calling up data and then shoving it towards Ronon. "What Sheppard said was true. The second he stepped through the gate to Atlantis, his genetic code triggered city-wide systems to come online and consume what little power the city had at a fantastic rate. Yes, we have other gene carriers, and yes, they're probably also to blame, but Sheppard to them is like – they're flutes and he's the whole orchestra. So we sent Sheppard here, to try and keep the city from burning itself out, and while he was working out a room and board deal with you people, I asked the city's holographic interface to tell me where we could get a ZPM." Rodney gestured impatiently at the tablet. "We've been working our way down that list of gate addresses on the assumptions that A) I asked the question properly while under incredible pressure and B) that the data isn't wrong. The Potentia was our first success, if you can call utter failure a success."

The list wasn't long: only eleven locations. Ronon had been to six of them, and hadn't even suspected that he was being used. "You said it was a power source."

Rodney grimaced. "Yes. Just one could probably have provided energy to your entire home world for years. Decades. With three of them, Atlantis sould be able to fly – travel via hyperspace, even. But with even one, we could get life support and the shield functional, research teams could study Ancient technology – I would stake my career on it being the best weapon this galaxy has against the Wraith."

Ronon leaned forward. "So why keep it a secret? You know Teyla's people, and Kell, would kill for the chance to get their hands on something like that."

Rodney met his eyes and said nothing for a very long moment. Then he said, "Exactly." He let all the implications sink in uncomfortably, and then finally went on. "Whether you like it or not, all the scientists on the expedition from Earth have years of experience working with Ancient tech, and we have gene carriers." He waved one hand sideways, and his crooked mouth turned down. "We've never yet found any kind of Ancient users' manual. People have died – or come close to it – because they accidentally turned something on, opened the wrong door, et cetera et cetera. Our people have the best chance of not dying horribly, but even so, some of them will. Imagine if it was Teyla, or Kell, or you. Who'd be blamed? The Ancients who all fucked off to a higher plane ten thousand years ago? Or the people from Earth who opened Pandora's box?"

Ronon didn't get the cultural references, but he followed the flow of information well enough, he thought. Kell already blamed the Earthlings for most things that went wrong. Dagan had been a windfall for him, because it had proved him right.

"So your people will be test subjects." Ronon studied the list of addresses again. He didn't recognize any of the unvisited ones, and felt the instinctual horror of not knowing whether they led to a living world or one without atmosphere, or to the deadly vacuum of space. He'd grown up with stories about people who'd gone through the gate and never returned, and only when he'd met the Earthlings had he realized that the gates were meant for jumpers, not for people on foot. Without the jumpers, people died; the Ancestors hadn't bothered to leave behind either that knowledge or the ships themselves. He wondered if Teyla was angry about that as well. He'd heard her parents had disappeared through the gate when she was a child.

"That's what we came here to trade," Rodney said, sounding weary. "Turn Atlantis into a knowledge and research factory. Write the damn manuals ourselves. We didn't plan on the botanists and the soldiers having the most useful skill sets, no."

"You want to visit these remaining worlds." Ronon handed the tablet back. "And your leaders don't know you're here."

Rodney tucked the tablet carefully back into his bag. "Well, they wouldn't let me take John," he said, as if that was obvious.

Ronon knew Rodney had a reputation for being crap at social interactions – he'd completely missed that Allina had been trying to seduce him, back on Dagan. But he had a problem-solving brain, and if he considered a person a worthy problem, Rodney could be disarmingly astute. Ronon had that scrutiny turned on him now, Rodney's eyes narrowed in consideration.

"John refuses to talk about it, of course, but I know you were close. Sumner hates him, because Weir wasn't supposed to appoint any military personnel but she did anyway, going over Sumner's objections to make John second in command despite his bad service record and him being in a totally different branch of the military. So he doesn't fit in, and then there's the fact that what he said is true, he _did_ turn on the systems that nearly killed Atlantis. Inadvertently, but that doesn't stop people from thinking of him as a bad-luck charm. And John knows that. He even agrees that they're right." Rodney spread his hands. "I think of him as my friend. But you and he really hit it off from the start. He... I can't imagine he was happy keeping secrets from you, but between Weir, Sumner, and every person who blames him for losing Atlantis and contact with Earth – well." Rodney's eyes met Ronon's, a challenge. "He sacrificed his own happiness for a chance at saving our people. And he failed. He thinks you and Teyla have every right to hate him."

"I don't," Ronon said. He was a little surprised to realize that. He was furious with John, and at least once a day thought about how good it would feel to beat the crap out of him, but that was nothing like the loathing and contempt he had for Kell and the other cowards who'd let Sateda fall without a fight. He'd been galled, after Dagan, to realize that he didn't know why John had started fucking him. If it had been part of a plan, to get Ronon's compliance, or if John just liked having sex. If John liked how strong Ronon was and the size of his dick, or if John liked Ronon for who he was. He didn't even know why _he'd_ fucked John in the first place, except it had seemed like a great idea at the time.

Rodney clearly hadn't been expecting his answer. He blinked, and then ostentatiously brushed his hands against his trousers, as if trying to hide that his palms were sweating with nervousness.

"Good." His voice cracked, and he coughed. "Excellent. I'm going to borrow... steal... _commandeer_ a jumper," he went on, not looking at Ronon now, his eyes flitting from the curtains to the clothes on pegs to the worktable. "John's in as pilot. I want you along, because you're good in a fight. Ideally we'd have a larger team, but I don't know who we can trust, and in a fight, let's face it, you're as good as five people."

"Ten," Ronon corrected, deadpan, glaring.

That earned him an eyeroll. "Yes, you're the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. Are you in?"

"What'll you do if I say no? If I go tell Kell that you're plotting against him?"

Rodney stood and pulled on his pack, fiddling with the straps. "Then your people can go on enjoying guerrilla operations that kill a handful of Wraith at a time, and miss out on the chance at weapons that can bring down _hiveships_. And I'll end up earning my next degree in cabbage weeding in the row next to John, probably."

Ronon put his elbows on his knees and bowed his head, studying the floor and his own broad hands, flexing and feeling the strength in his fingers. He'd prefer to run than to be forced into farming. But the thought of being alone again twisted his insides tight.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I'm in."

Rodney let out a harsh breath. "Good. Great. I'll be in touch." He thrust out his hand. Ronon straightened, and then clasped Rodney's wrist tight, unmooring the life he'd been given back, putting everything he had at stake, including his future here with the Satedans on Athos.

Stealing the jumper turned out to be as easy as taking an early-morning walk. The ship was invisible as it moved through the pale glow of the sky; the only sign of their conspiracy was the gate engaging, dialed by Rodney as he sat in the co-pilot's chair. A wash of white energy, inexplicable, harnessed by technology so strange it might as well be magic as Rodney's science, and then they were gone.

The first planet they arrived at didn't exist any more. The Ancestral gate circled slowly in an asteroid belt, and Ronon had never seen John work as fast as he did then, to get the cloak off and the shields up while avoiding chunks of rock that spun at them with terrifying irregularity.

"Get us out of here," John yelled at Rodney, who was running scans and flinching every time asteroids came at the front window.

"Energy signatures," Rodney shouted back. "Give me – one minute," and he was half-standing, hunched over his tablet, fingers drumming impatiently on the air. "Are there _any_ planets, moons, cities, I don't know, _anything?_ "

Ronon saw John's shoulders tighten – with anger and impatience, he assumed – and when John spoke his voice was hard. "Think the ZPM went boom." The tactical display shifted to the side, and data about the local system popped up, nothing but bands of debris. "Come on, McKay."

"Fine," Rodney said. "Fine." That made Ronon hide a grin in his whiskers despite their dire circumstances. His second sister had driven his father nuts with her backtalk. She'd sounded just like that, snippy and sullen, as if asking her to train her siblings or clear the table was a hardship and injustice.

Ronon's dad had yelled at her a lot; John had more patience, even though his grip on the jumper's controls was tighter than usual. John swept the jumper up in a sharp turn, just in time for them to see a rock as big as a dozen tents slam into the side of the gate, sending it rolling away from them like a child's hoop.

"Dialing," Rodney announced, and John pulled his chin down and threaded the jumper through a course that changed instant to instant. "No lock."

"Next one," John ordered.

"Like I don't know – fuck. No lock. Shut up, fourth time's the charm."

"Plan B," John said, an edge to his voice. " _Now_ , McKay."

Rodney made a noncommittal grunt, and then sat back in satisfaction as light flashed out from the gate, vaporizing all rocks within the vortex. "Go. Go, go, go!"

"Screw you – " John's breathing was deliberate, a steady rhythm, and his focus on the display was razor-sharp, but Rodney apparently got under his skin – "this isn't _easy_."

Something Ronon didn't see smashed into the side of the jumper, and John rolled them with the impact. He turned the motion into a smooth rush toward the waiting blue of the gate, and Ronon felt a wash of relief as the jumper slid through. He didn't want to die in space.

Where they ended up wasn't any better, though.

" _Damn_ it," John shouted, open palm coming down hard on the control panel. "You dialed fucking _Atlantis_?"

"It's not," Rodney snapped back. "Same floorplan, totally different interior designer."

"Wraith," Ronon got out, swallowing down the sickness that had rising in the back of his throat. Heavy ropes of tentacles wound their way up the walls, hung like curtains from the balconies, seemed to creep back from the wash of the Ancestral gate as if intelligent. "Hive ships look like this."

"Take your word for it." John sounded strained, and he half-turned back to face Ronon, like he was going to offer some words of condolence or ask questions, Ronon wasn't sure. He couldn't have dealt with either. There were things he was never going to tell John. "Rodney?"

Rodney was throwing schematics up on the display frantically. "Busy."

"Give me _something_." John waited a beat for an answer, and then hit the keys to close the gate with the side of his fist. "Plan C," he announced, and the jumper accelerated backwards. Rodney's horrified protest was cut off by sounds of crashing and shattering, as the jumper punched through the chamber wall and outside, into bright sun and a sky as brilliant as clear shallow water.

The planet beneath them spread out in every direction in rolling green meadows; the tower they'd escaped from rising up like a perverse monument. The top of the tower was thick with the slick crawling mass of red. Only when he looked closely could Ronon see the tower's walls beneath, clean and white. The hole made by the jumper's egress yawned dark, crawling tentacles already working to knit the damage closed.

"Sorry to bust up the windows before you got a good look," John said, gesturing for Ronon to come to the front. "One thing about Atlantis, the stained glass was awesome."

"I've got one life sign." Rodney tapped at his tablet, and a line drawing of the tower filled the screen. "Half of this is guesswork, of course, but this tower appears similar to Atlantis' central tower. About sixty-five, seventy percent lower, at a guess. Gate room at the top, jumper bay above that, which means the central power room should be here – " he pointed – "around level twenty, and the ZPM room would be at the ground level."

"Great," John said, and nodded. "So maybe we can just walk in."

Ronon flicked him in the ear for being dense. "What's the life sign?" 

Rodney spread his hands. "I have no idea." He spread his fingers, and the drawing zoomed in on blinking red circle, a level just below the power room. "It's not moving. But I'd have to agree that Wraith is probably a good guess, because all of that – " he waved outside, at the hideous mass enveloping the tower – "doesn't seem very Ancient."

"One Wraith?" John looked up at Ronon, cocking an eyebrow. "Ronon and I can handle it. You should stay with the car." He shrugged, fake nonchalance. "You can dial the gate and call Athos for help. If you need to."

"I have a theory," Rodney said, loud enough to make John pause. "I think the Wraith is cannibalizing the tower. But unless all this is _very_ recent, it should have finished the job long ago." John rolled his hand, obviously impatient to get out and move. "Someone cut the power," Rodney said. "And the tentacles feed off power."

That earned Rodney the full weight of John's skeptical stare. "You know this how?"

"Check the jumper's power usage records, Major." Rodney crossed his arms. "I'll wait."

John pulled the data up, still frowning. But even Ronon could read the numbers: in just the time they'd been in the gate chamber, the jumper had lost close to five-hundred percent more power than it had while evading the asteroids.

"Crap," John said, and rubbed his hand hard over his chin. "That hurts."

Ronon hadn't thought about how the jumpers were powered. He'd assumed... that like the gates, they just always worked. Something else to worry about, he guessed.

"You think someone hid the Potentia," Ronon guessed. The Earthling name meant nothing to him; he preferred what the Quindosium called their crystal. It sounded more like a treasure. "Inside there. And kept that knowledge from the Wraith."

"Only one life sign." Rodney made a face. "They took their secret to the grave most likely."

"Great," John muttered. "We've got a monster and a ghost story, all we need now is a thunderstorm."

Ronon looked pointedly up at the cheerful sky, wisps of soft clouds bright in the distance. He slapped John across the back. "Can't get everything you want," he told him, and went to gear up.

As Rodney had predicted, they didn't find anything on the ground floor, just the signs of a long-ago battle. The bodies were skeletons now, human and Wraith, and heavy dust lay over everything.

"Stairs," John said, using the light on his weapon to scope them out. "Ronon, our friend moving?"

Ronon pulled the life-signs detector out of his vest and squinted at it. "Nope."

John nodded, and started climbing.

The tower had a lot of hallways and rooms, and after getting frustrated on the fifth floor by what seemed to be a window-lined maze, John sucked in his temper with a harsh breath.

"Let's go get the damn Wraith," he said. "This place is giving me the creeps."

Ronon didn't say anything. John took the lack of argument as assent, and turned back towards the stairs.

Ronon's head was killing him, pounding with every step no matter how lightly he trod. He tried to persuade himself that it was from being thrown around in the asteroid field, that maybe he'd hit his head and just hadn't noticed. But deep down he knew his body was fighting to get away from the mass of viscera-red tentacles – he could practically smell them as he got closer, like warm rot, the foul drain stench of Wraith multiplied thousands of times over. He knew that smell because he'd been taken to a hiveship after he was captured on Sateda; he knew how the mass would feel, firm and slimy, eel-like, inescapable.

He felt the presence of Wraith all over his skin and in his head, and he didn't know how to ask John if it was just him. Maybe he was going crazy again. He thought he could almost hear Wraith laughing at him.

He stopped and shook his head hard, checking the setting on his gun, moving again before John fell back to check up on him. He managed to hold himself together until they turned on a landing and saw the walls veined with red, like a poisonous infection spreading downwards, and Ronon ripped his gun free of the holster.

He lost some time, then. The pressure in his head was the hand of a Wraith crushing the life from him, speaking directly into his skull so that he couldn't block the words. The Wraith promised Ronon that they'd play the game again, that Ronon had been so good at showing the Wraith which worlds to cull. They'd missed him, the voice announced. _Welcome._

"Snap out of it," Melena said, giving Ronon a rough shove between the shoulders. "Keep moving."

Ronon was holding his gun with both hands, but they weren't in the stairwell any more. He was stumbling down a corridor towards light – an atrium, with tall windows, whose colors were those of the sun, of Melena's hair.

"You're dead." Ronon let his head fall forward as fresh grief bowed him. "I gave Kell everything I owned," and he hadn't allowed himself to remember that, had dressed himself in self-righteousness and anger when he was no better than the rest of the desperate cowards who'd survived. "You were supposed to – I love you."

Melena's hand gripped the back of his neck: firm, strong, comforting. "Don't look back."

Ronon remembered. Children had passed around lore of their own, on the play lots and in school, voiced in whispers and with solemn vows of secrecy. Ronon'd learned about sex, and about ghosts, and that when running from the Wraith the one thing you must never do was to turn around and look back. Because that would call them to you: you'd turn, and they'd be right on your heels, and you'd die.

"Talk to me," Melena said, and Ronon realized he'd stopped still, dazed by memories. The prod at his back was urgent, and he made his feet move. "Tell me about how we first met."

"Your yellow dress." Ronon had to look ahead, to the windows, find a panel of the same color. It almost made him smile. "I tore it, sparring with you, and you made me mend it before you stitched up the cut on my forehead." Melena meant _sunlight_ , and she'd been given the name at her ceremony because she was bright and cheerful, but also fierce and unrelenting. Stricter than any of Ronon's taskmasters in some ways. Ronon had wanted to be someone deserving of her, so he'd driven himself to study for the Specialist’s certification, and learned to cook, and bit his tongue every time he swore until he didn't speak like a rough soldier any more.

"Cool," Melena said, and then made Ronon shove open a door that led to a silver-railed balcony. Ronon moved to head outside, and a black-clad arm across his chest restrained him. Melena never wore night colors; it was strange and unsettling. "You stay here, okay? While I go check things out?"

Ronon swallowed hard. "No. The Wraith... the Wraith are in my head."

Melena's hands were at his shoulders and for a moment Ronon felt a head rest at the back of his neck. "I'm hearing voices, too. It sucks. I get that. But right now I can climb the wall and you can't. So stay here."

"Don't look back," Ronon insisted, because suddenly that was more important than anything. "The Wraith will get you. They got me." He didn't want Melena to know; he wanted her to respect him the way she had before she died. He missed knowing he was loved the way he'd missed food when he was starving. "I was a Wraith-bringer. A runner. I wasn't strong enough to die."

"No one's dying except the Wraith," Melena said. The words were sharp, but Ronon thought he heard care underneath. "Stay. Keep your radio on."

One last brush of hands and then Ronon found himself leaning in the doorway, staring out across the soft green hills, still holding his gun, alone now. He wondered if Melena had been a ghost, or just his madness. He forced himself out onto the balcony, breathed hard and then looked up. The slight figure in black was already high above, moving carefully along the white wall from one foothold to the next, but Ronon's eyes were captured by the red stain reaching down. He made himself look away, terrified that the Wraith in his head was using him, seeing through his eyes. He feared this was all a trap, that he was surrounded by the dead, that they'd rise up and come after him, like Melena had. He still had his gun.

He would sooner die than be taken again, and the screaming cacophony in his head was so loud he could only cling to that one thought. He thought his brain might explode; his throat burned like he'd been screaming. The old scars on his back throbbed in time with the pounding of his heart, his hands going numb – 

– and then there was a wash of absolute silence, like blessed rain after a long drought. Ronon sucked in a breath, then another, loosened his fingers one by one from the lock they had on his weapon. His knees were shaking with weakness.

The silence didn't last long; Ronon's radio squawked indignantly from where it had fallen to the floor, and he bent over to pick it up.

_"– anyone there? Seriously, if you don't pick up in thirty seconds, Sheppard, I'm... I guess I'm going to have to go in after you."_ Rodney sounded angry; he was probably terrified. _"And I won't like that!"_

"Rodney," Ronon said. He tucked the radio over his ear, holstered his gun, and dug out the life-signs detector. "Stay put. I'm going after John."

_"You weren't supposed to split up!"_ Rodney shouted. _"He's four levels up from you, how did that happen?"_

On the tiny display of the LSD, Ronon saw one stationary blip, and three others circling in on it.

"Fuck," Ronon said, and took the stairs at a dead run.

The red tentacles were motionless now; dead, he guessed. The stink was just as bad, but he couldn't feel them eating their way into his thoughts. It didn't make sense, if John had killed the Wraith responsible for all this... unless there were other Wraith who'd been in hibernation.

The floor John was on was mostly dark, the windows grown over and only allowing in slivers of sickly light. But the tentacles thickened and increased in number in the direction of the life signs, so Ronon figured he was headed to the heart of the damage. It gave him the creeps, which enraged him. He'd had the fucking Wraith in his head – it had made him let John down.

He hadn't even known who John was, sucked back into a haze of memories and nightmares. He didn't have any idea how much time had passed.

All he could do was run, and hope he wasn't too late.

He heard weapons fire and saw the bursts of muzzle flash, and put on speed, trying to mentally map the LSD data onto the chamber he saw opening up before him. The ceiling had been ripped open by the red mass, which hung down in ropes and curtains. The walls were set with what looked like glass-covered beds, partially recessed into the walls. The glass over the beds was smashed; on each lay a twisted, desiccated corpse in rotting white robes.

Ronon guessed the place had been some kind of medical treatment facility. When the Wraith came, the healthy had fought to their deaths. With no one left to protect them, the patients in their beds had been helpless. He could imagine the Wraith moving down the ward, smashing open the protective covers one after the other, feeding and moving on. And then... There were three Wraith now, so John must have woken them from hibernation. Hopefully they were weakened; but he wasn't going to count on it.

He rounded the corner, saw a flash of armor and fired instantly. One of the face-masked Wraith, strong but stupid. Another got a shot off at him, but he dropped to the floor, blasting it in the knees and then in the chest as it toppled down. Ronon unsheathed his sword as he stood, and severed the heads and hands quickly. _Make sure,_ his first taskmaster had told him. _Because these bastards take a lot of killing to stay dead._

Ronon wasn't stupid enough to leave potential enemies behind him.

Beside a bed entangled with heavy tentacles he saw a white-haired Wraith raise its head and bare its fangs at him, but he was too late – John was on the ground, frail, wisp-haired, and the Wraith was still feeding.

Ronon's vision went red. He moved into the center of the room, feeling twice his height with fury, even as the Wraith pulled back into a feral crouch.

"I planted explosives," Ronon shouted, showing the Wraith the LSD in his left hand. "I swear I'll bring this tower down if you don't fix him."

"Wraith-bringer." Thin lips pulled back in a victorious grimace. "I know you. I know you _lie_."

"Everything you built here destroyed." Ronon could see John wracked by tremors, but refused to think of him as close to death. "But my word as a Satedan if you give him his life back, I'll walk away."

"There are no bombs," the Wraith said, and its utter confidence and contempt left insidious tendrils of doubt in Ronon's mind. Maybe he couldn't ever save anyone except himself.

And then the tower shuddered, swaying hard enough for tentacles to fall from the ceiling, a terrible sound of shattering glass and twisting metal reaching them a moment later.

"He dies," Ronon said, and pulled the corners of his mouth up in a cruel smile, "and we both die. The tower falls. The gate and the power crystals are lost. The whole planet might disintegrate – _I don't care_."

"Liar," the Wraith repeated, and Ronon felt the room around them pulse as wisps of terror flitted from side to side, like the faces of terrified villagers fleeing the darts overhead as Ronon watched from his hiding place, knowing he was the reason they were dying, he'd brought the Wraith down on them, and he'd do it again on other worlds, until the only sound he heard was screaming.

Ronon sucked in a breath, reminded himself that the illusions were only his fears, and tightened his grip on the LSD.

The Wraith snarled and lunged forward, slapping its feeding hand down hard over the seeping wound on John's chest where his clothes had been ripped away. Ronon breathed in, out, in, not letting himself think of anything except his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot if the Wraith betrayed him.

But it didn't. Tyre had told him that the gift of life from a Wraith was miraculous. It looked that way, as Ronon watched John's withered skin plump and fill, his hair bloom full and dark, his gnarled hands straightening. Like something out of a folktale, or a nightmare.

John's eyes snapped open before the Wraith was done, and Ronon saw his feet start to move, weakly trying to get enough traction to push himself away from the yellow eyes and rows of fangs filling his vision. But he was pinned down until the Wraith finally reared back in fury, John's blood outlining the gash on its hand where it fed.

"We have a deal. I gave you my word as a Satedan," Ronon said. He stunned the Wraith twice, knocking it down and crossing the room in two strides, pocketing the LSD. The Wraith moved like a larva turned out of the dirt. "But Sateda's gone." Ronon kicked it hard to get its dazed attention in the second before he severed its head and hands, grabbing them up and tossing them into the wall, trailing arcs of dark blood.

Only once that was done did he look at John – _really_ look. John was trying to get to his feet and away from the Wraith corpse, but he stumbled getting his feet under him. There was a sick look of horror in John's eyes, but the set of his jaw was stubborn. Freaking out, Ronon thought, but not going to let the Wraith win.

"Here." Ronon held his hand out and John grabbed it, letting Ronon haul him up. He was shaking, and Ronon felt as if he'd reached the limit of the anger he could feel, pushed through into some new, expansive emotion.

"Thanks," John said, voice rough like he'd screamed his throat raw. Ronon wouldn't be surprised if he had. "What happened?"

Ronon shrugged. "Rodney blew some shit up." He was still holding John's hand; he didn't want to let go, and decided that he didn't care about politics or power sources, not right now. He pulled John in and wrapped his arms around him, and after a stiff moment John returned the hug, letting Ronon feel the strength that had returned to him. He ducked his head to rub his rough cheek against John's, and John made a harsh sound and held on tighter.

_"Please tell me no one's dead,"_ Rodney said, voice loud from the radio speaker and high-pitched with panic. _"I'm sorry, I hope you weren't fond of the second floor south veranda, it's rubble now. Sheppard – is Sheppard dead?"_

"We're okay," Ronon said, trying to sound like that was true. "We're done here. Be down soon."

"There's a ZPM," John interrupted. "We got to get that first."

Ronon nearly snapped _no_ , even though Rodney was making high-pitched excited noises, but John pressed his forehead to his shoulder like he was gathering strength, and then stepped back. His shirt fell open, ripped to expose the mark on his chest, and Ronon thought, yeah, John had earned this.

John's gun and his radio, as well as his belt knife and the crushed remains of his sunglasses, were scattered over the floor. He checked his radio and then set it in place, and secured the rest of his belongings.

"There were Ancients here," John told Rodney, putting his hands on his hips and turning in a slow circle. "In stasis pods. The Wraith were... mutating them into this hiveship crap. That one life sign, it was a woman with tentacles coming out of her chest and her _eyes_ who'd been battling the Wraith mutation with just her mind for hundreds of years. I could feel her in my head, screaming to be free."

"You shot her," Ronon asked, pretty sure that was what John meant.

_"The_ last surviving _Ancient?"_ Rodney spluttered, and Ronon saw John jerk like he'd been slapped.

"She was in hell," John said tightly. "And I didn't kill her, she just disappeared or dissolved or something."

Rodney sighed noisily into the speaker. _"I'd better do the explaining to Elizabeth,"_ he said. _"I'm good with words."_

John looked at Ronon and raised both eyebrows, as if this was funny. "Better you than me."

The woman had given John directions in flashes of memory, not an actual route, so finding the storage room took longer than Ronon liked. Even dead, the masses of red around them were ominous and disturbing, and there was no way to know that there weren't other Wraith still in hibernation. Ronon checked the LSD before turning every corner, as nervous as a jumping spider out of its nest. He knew John was wound just as tightly, hand always on his weapon.

But when they found the entrance to the room and had cut it free from layers of malevolent growth, the door opened to John's touch, the panel glowing yellow and welcoming as it slid to the side. John tugged out the metal case inside, and then gave Ronon a startled grin as he caught sight of the other one behind it. Ronon made him open both right there in the corridor. Four Potentia, two in each, held secure by thick blue foam.

"Fuck," John said, shaking his head in disbelief even as he poked at one gingerly with a finger. "Rodney – we found them."

_"PLURAL?"_ Ronon winced and tried to turn down the volume on his radio. _"Seriously?"_

"They could be duds," John warned. "But yeah. I think we did it. We can – "

_"Atlantis,"_ Rodney said. _"Finally. Although, when we first got here, I had visions of reverse-engineering tech and making brilliant discoveries, and now I just want every single Wraith dead."_

"Death to them all," Ronon agreed. "But home first."

When they were down and outside, Ronon saw the tower wasn't as structurally compromised as he'd feared it might be after Rodney'd blown big chunks out of it. He was still relieved when the gate dialed and the jumper slipped forward into the wormhole. If the tower had fallen and they'd somehow survived, digging the gate out of the rubble would have sucked.

It was night on Athos, and John cloaked the jumper instantly, pulling up into the sky high above the pitched guard tents – yeah, they had really pissed off Kell and everyone else, Ronon figured. No one fired on them, which was good, but when Rodney announced that they should wait until morning, go turn the Potentia over to Elizabeth tomorrow, Ronon had no objections. People made mistakes under cover of darkness.

John bit his lip, stilling the jumper in the air. "Has to be everyone," he said. "Teyla, Kell, Sumner. No more secrets."

"That makes sense," Rodney admitted grudgingly. Ronon figured there was no way he was going to deny John anything, not when the wound on John's chest was still raw. Rodney hadn't asked John what happened, but he'd turned horrified eyes to Ronon when they arrived carrying the Potentia. Ronon had shrugged. There was no way to undo the past. Everyone had to learn to live with their scars.

"Put the jumper down by the north shore," Ronon said. He didn't want early-morning fishermen banging into invisible walls. No one went to the north except for children on school excursions to the Teaching Caves. "Behind the fallow fields."

John nodded, and they didn't say anything more until the ship touched down on grass and leaves.

"I want John to see a friend of mine," Ronon told Rodney, getting up and heading for the door. "He went through the same thing."

"I don't – " John started, but Rodney cut him off with a sharp _Are you kidding me?_ John's face flushed, and he stared at the floor, started to cross his arms but then stopped, hands curled tense at his sides.

"I heard what happened, over the radio," Rodney went on. "Go. I'll – " he waved a hand vaguely at the benches at the back of the jumper, where the cases were strapped down under layers and layers of netting "– keep the doors locked. And probably fondle these babies in a way that would make you uncomfortable if you stayed, so. Go."

"Ew," John said, making a face, but that was the impetus he needed. He kept his weapons and warned Rodney not to open up for anyone, but followed Ronon easily enough. The moon was bright enough that neither of them stepped into snake holes or fell down ravines, even if they were moving with more speed than stealth.

Walking, Ronon told John how the Wraith had captured him and tortured him, turned him into their toy and made him run. He told John that he'd gone crazy. That whole villages had been culled because of his carelessness.

He told John that Melena had died in front of his eyes when the Wraith came to Sateda, even though Ronon had decided that her life was worth more than his honor. He'd paid Kell to keep her safe. He was ashamed that he'd forgotten that, though he guessed that if he'd remembered the guilt would have devoured him years ago.

"I loved her," he told John. "I'd have done anything for her."

"I'm sorry." From behind, John's voice came ghostly but sincere. "You miss her a lot."

"Yeah." Ronon stopped short and half-turned, and John bumped into him. It made it easy to grab John and hold him steady, and keep on holding him. "Because I loved her first, doesn't mean... that you and me are just fucking. I like having you around. Even if you drive me nuts."

"I thought," John started, then stopped. "You don't need to – I'm a big boy, I can live with being your friend, who you _fuck_ sometimes. I'm not _fragile_."

"I like when you're happy," Ronon said, shrugging. "And you have to shut up now. We're close, and voices carry."

Tyre'd set up tripwires around his tent, and Ronon made sure to step on each of them, hoping the soft clatter of shell chimes would keep Tyre from being startled into trying to rip Ronon in half.

"Hey," he called, keeping his voice low. "Tyre? Chila?"

He didn't hear movement, but caught the glint of light on a blade in the tent's shadow and turned quickly, holding his hands out, palms up.

"Wake the baby and I'll gut you," Chila said, but she sheathed her knife and Ronon saw her grin a moment before she came forward and put her hands on his shoulders, pulling him down into a greeting. "It's late, Satedan."

"We need help," Ronon said, and caught John's wrist to pull him forward. Chila didn't recoil the way most people did from those who'd been turned by the Wraith; she glanced once at the wound and then looked John in the face before stepping deliberately in front of him and bowing her head. John was crap at social touching – he'd told Ronon once that his tribe back on Earth felt a hand-clasp was intimate enough – but he lowered his head to Chila's, even though he had to close his eyes as if embarrassed.

"Come inside," Chila said, stepping back, welcoming even though Ronon saw now that she was wearing an untied tunic and stood barefoot. "Tyre should be decent now."

Ronon snorted as he followed her. "He's never been decent before," he pointed out, ducking under the raised tent flap, still pulling John along.

Tyre scowled like he might just gut the both of them for rousing him from his bed, jabbing a finger between John and a chair until John sat, and then frowning at Ronon until Chila shoved a flask of cold tea into his hands. There were cups on the table, next to the dishes under a clean cloth. Ronon poured tea for each of them, and Tyre drained his in one long, slow, threatening swallow.

"Found a hiveship, kind of," Ronon said, as quietly as he could. A curtain separated off the back of the tent for sleeping, but he had no idea what would set the baby off. With Tyre's genes, he wouldn't be surprised if it slept with one eye open. "With a white-haired Wraith."

Tyre studied John with narrowed eyes. "How many times?"

John's shoulders hunched in. "Two... I think."

Ronon nearly choked on the tea he was sipping but forced himself not to insult Chila's hospitality. He hadn't known – never even considered that he hadn't been in time to save John, even though he knew the Wraith had killed Tyre and his squad over and over.

"Ronon whacked the Wraith's head off," John added. "It was epic."

"I taught him everything he knows," Tyre said, and put his cup down, crossing to where John sat and pressing the skin around the wound with two fingers. "Did you like it?"

"No," John said sharply, anger sparking in his eyes. "It hurt and I _hated_ feeling... dying. I didn't let the fucker in my head, I knew... that would be be the end of everything."

Tyre nodded. "You wouldn't have had a choice in the end," he said, mildly, and John bit his lip, holding back his temper. Ronon didn't know how well he knew Tyre, but he figured John knew what Tyre had been through.

Chila came out of the back with a stack of thin bandages and a pot of ointment, handed them to Tyre, and kissed him good night before saying her apologies and going back to bed. Tyre looked at John for permission, and John nodded, pulling off his vest and shirt as directed. Ronon felt weird just watching; even though Tyre was helping, he wanted to shove him away and tell him not to touch. He poured himself another cup of tea. It tasted terrible, but he made himself drink in measured sips.

Tyre went on, "This'll itch for a week or so. Don't scratch. The drug they inject when they're killing you makes you feel invincible. When it wears off it's the worst hangover you've ever had. Shakes, vomiting, headache. Some people, it's so bad they go back to the Wraith to get more."

"Not me," John said, and raised his arms obediently so Tyre could wind the bandages around his back.

Tyre shrugged. "People think the scar means you're a spy for the Wraith. Keep it hidden." He tied the bandage ends and tucked them in, and offered John a clean shirt from a basket. He looked up at Ronon. "Was it worth it?"

Ronon's throat went dry; it took two tries to swallow his mouthful of tea.

"Yeah," John said, pushing to his feet and meeting Ronon's eyes. "You'll see."

"Whatever," Tyre said, and kicked them back out into the night.

On the way back to the jumper, John kept stumbling into Ronon and bumping against him until finally he grabbed Ronon by the arm and shoved him hard up against a tree. John held Ronon down with his hands and kissed him, covering Ronon with his body as if he was freezing and needed his warmth. Ronon wrapped his hands around John's back to keep him there, and John went up on his toes, hips jerking forward so his dick rode the crease of Ronon's hip. Ronon figured his beard was scratching John's face up, but John kept kissing him, open-mouthed and fierce, greedy.

When John did pull back, it was to slide his mouth around to Ronon's ear and say in a low rasp, "I want to suck you." John's breath was hot. "Or you could fuck me, right here."

"What if I suck you?" Ronon asked – he'd never done that yet, and John had never asked. "Go on my knees and make you scream so loud Rodney calls for help."

"You don't have to," John said, a shade of warning in his voice.

"I might like it," Ronon countered. He tightened his hold and twisted, picking John up as he turned so John's back hit the tree trunk and now Ronon was the one pinning _him_ in place. "Get your pants down."

John kept making half-assed protests up until Ronon was on his knees with the head of John's cock on his tongue, and could make credible threats with his teeth. That made John laugh and shudder and grab fistfuls of Ronon's hair in his hands, saying _Please_ over and over.

John _liked_ the scrape of teeth along the length of his cock, Ronon learned. Hearing the way John gasped in breath, feeling the rigid tension in John's hips as he fought to keep from thrusting forward and fucking into Ronon's mouth – it made Ronon feel strong, and grateful, and tender, and at the same time made him want to tease John for as long as he could, until he couldn't speak, until his knees shook so hard he couldn't stand.

He reached between John's legs, cupping his palm around the heat of John's balls and rubbing his fingers up behind them, along the line there. John had taught him how that felt, the way it magnified the need to come, sent sparks of pleasure up into his belly, almost too much to bear. John shouted, the sound muffled by his fist, and Ronon tugged, trying to let him know it was okay to move, that he _wanted_ John to move.

"I'll come," John said, head falling back against the tree, hand on Ronon's shoulder gripping tight enough to bruise.

"So?" Ronon said, muffled. John laughed again, though it turned into a groan as he rolled his hips slow and deliberate, his dick sliding over Ronon's wet lips, a careful in and out, like John didn't want to hurt him. Or maybe John just wanted to frustrate Ronon back, knowing how hard he had to be even though he was still wearing his battle gear, dick crammed up against the leather with no place to go.

"I want – " John said, voice cracking. "You, all I – tell me, _please_."

Ronon slid his tongue along the underside of John's dick, pressing it up so his teeth caught as John pulled back. "I want you," he said, and there was no way John could understand his words, but John's chest heaved and he said _Fuck, me too_ , and his dick jerked in Ronon's mouth, the only warning before he came.

Ronon swallowed because John always did, and because he wasn't going to spit any part of John's vitality into the dirt. He didn't really like the taste, but he loved how John curled over him, body wracked with pleasure. It made him desperate, and he pulled back, fingers ripping at the laces on his pants. John pushed at his shoulders, bearing Ronon down to the ground, kneeling over him and kissing him and helping him (getting in the way), and at the first touch of John's fingers Ronon was gone, falling apart in John's arms because he knew John had his back, John loved him and would die for him, they belonged together and probably deserved each other.

Because Ronon was there for John, too, to catch him when he fell, and to rise up together.

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

Rodney made radio contact after too much time had passed and Elizabeth and Teyla were conferring in hushed, agonized tones.

_"Everything's fine,"_ Rodney said. _"Better than fine – great, wonderful, amazing. Elizabeth, you have got to see this."_

"Understood," Elizabeth said, face vulnerable with relief. "We'll be right there."

When the gate engaged, a group of Earth soldiers went through first, and then the leaders, and then the others – Athosian religious advisers, Earth scientists, Ronon and John, who was still in some kind of complicated official disgrace.

The hall they emerged into was filled with brilliant golden light, from asymmetrical windows that rose two stories high. Ronon saw at a glance that the chamber was identical to the one in the tower, but it was untouched by Wraith violation, whole, unbroken. Before them rose a wide sweep of stairs, each riser inscribed with the writing of the Ancestors. The effect of the room was to draw the eyes up, and Ronon noted with amusement that it worked: every head raised in wonder and joy, even his own.

Rodney called to them from a mezzanine level, but was too impatient to wait while everyone lingered over their initial impressions. He jogged down the stairs, tablet in one hand, face lit by a wide grin.

"The shields failed," he informed Elizabeth, as if that was good news. "Completely, when we were only halfway to the ZPM room. The whole city shook like an earthquake. We thought we were dead – my undergraduate years flashed before my eyes – and then..." He gestured with both hands, a wild light in his eyes. "Sunlight. There was some kind of subroutine to raise the city to keep the essential parts from flooding. Zelenka's working on that now, but – we're on the ocean surface, and even just trying out one of the new ZPMs, you would not _believe_ what's coming online. And... just _look_ at her." He stretched out one arm grandly, indicating the gate room, the tower, the whole of Atlantis.

Ronon leaned towards John. "Cities are female in your language?"

John shrugged. "No. But McKay really likes beautiful women."

That made a weird kind of sense. "What about you?"

John looked at Ronon sidelong, an amused smile curling his mouth. "I like what I like."

Ronon wanted to kiss him right there, and fuck John's commanding officer and leader and anyone else who disapproved. He saw John's eyes widen and then drop to the tiled floor, as though trying to hide secret pleasure.

"Sheppard!" Rodney yelled, and John's head came up quickly. "You need to – You are not going to _believe_ this. Follow me."

John rolled his eyes but set off after Rodney, who kept telling them to walk faster. Ronon followed them down a corridor and up a flight of stairs; he had nothing better to do, and he figured Rodney had found something cool. And potentially explosive.

"Look," Rodney demanded, herding them into a round room. " _Look._ "

There was a raised platform, with a pedestal in front of it. Rodney strode up to the pedestal and put his hand on it fearlessly, even though it reminded Ronon too much of Dagan.

On the raised platform, a woman in loose white robes appeared, hands folded sanctimoniously in front of her, eyebrows arched as if she'd been rudely called away from some other place.

"It's a hologram," Rodney explained, drumming his fingers against the interface console. "Or... it's _supposed_ to be one. A teaching tool. You can ask it questions. For example: why were you asking for Major Sheppard by name earlier?"

John jerked and straightened, eyes narrowing and shoulders going tight.

The woman in the hologram smirked kind of snottily, but then her form changed, her pale hair darkening and curling up, her eyes and skin darkening, the lines of her face deepening even as her cheeks rounded up into a smile of genuine pleasure.

"He saved me," the woman said. "From a living death of torment and madness, and now I am at peace." She inclined her head. "I am Tel Xagi, and I came here to make you an offer, John Sheppard." She extended one hand, palm up. "Will you come with me? The realm of the Ascended is full of wonders, and answers to all questions, and freedom from pain, forever."

John moved forward, then stepped up on the dais, looking dazed and bewildered. Ronon was sure he'd read this tale as a child in a picture book: the enchanted castle, the princess, the long-lost prince, the parties and feasts. John took her hand – or it looked like he did; Ronon wasn't sure she was corporeal – and then leaned in to press his forehead to hers.

And then he stepped back.

"I can't do that," he said, tipping his head in apology. "I – _we_ – have a war to finish here. Or else the Wraith will just keep on murdering everyone, and – if there's going to be peace, it has to be for everyone." He shrugged. "Plus I'm happy enough here. I have a home. Thanks, though."

Beside Ronon, Rodney was spluttering, his cheeks darkening with emotion, and in the doorway, Elizabeth stood frozen, watching with wide eyes.

Tel Xagi's smile didn't waver. Ronon kind of thought she looked a bit smug. He thought about different folktales, the kind where spirits appeared to test people, find out how strong or wise or kind they were.

"I understand," she said. "I am pleased for you," and vanished from the room in a blink.

"John?" Elizabeth asked, and Ronon hoped that John wasn't going to be blamed for screwing up _again_. But then the lights dimmed and a starchart began forming in the air, lights hovering over them all like glowbugs, the entire galaxy filling the room.

"These red ones are hive ships," Rodney said, peering at a star system hovering near his left shoulder. "The blue blips are stargates, they've got addresses – "

_"Dr Weir,"_ came a voice over a broadcast system, and Ronon twitched, instinctively looking for the loudspeaker. _"Dr McKay. Report to the gate room, please."_

Rodney fumbled for his radio. "No, listen, Zelenka, you need to get to the hologram room, we've got intel you wouldn't believe."

_"I've got long-range and subspace scanners, and an underwater power station,"_ Zelenka countered. _"And more jumpers. And maybe a laser."_

"Show off," Rodney snapped. "Okay, we're going, just send people down here ASAP." He looked over at John. "Don't let anyone turn this off until we've got the data downloaded and saved."

With one last regretful look at the room full of stars, Rodney turned and followed Elizabeth, both of them practically running.

Ronon shut the door.

"You do that?" he asked John, tossing an arm around his shoulders and indicating the stars with his chin.

"Maybe," John said, with a shrug. He looked up, squinted, and a golden bubble formed in the air high above the dais. "That's Athos," John said, looking pleased.

Ronon kissed him hard and fast, holding John still, his free hand sliding into John's hair at the back of his neck. "Home," he said, and let John go so they didn't get caught making out when they were supposed to be on duty. John had to grab Ronon's hand for balance as he got his feet under him, and even though he shot Ronon a dark glare, his heart wasn’t really in it. He gave Ronon's fingers a quick squeeze before lacing their hands together, standing close like they were the only two people in the universe.

"Home," he agreed.

the end


End file.
